Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
Freewill applied even to Mary. Mary, like every person of every time is given the opportunity to accept and cooperate with Grace or reject it and choose sin. Mary was not God's brood mare, nor the rape victim of the Holy Spirit nor some rent-a-womb in a surrogate scheme imposed upon Her.
From the moment of Jesus' conception until His birth She was the Holy of Holies, the living Tabernacle and the Ark of the New Covenant. She was a creature, but She is NOT your equal or mine.
Peace be with you
Of course she is...If your religion would quit making up stories to add to the bible, you'd know that as well...
Nope! If we are all equal how do you explain the unequal distribution of Gifts? (1 Corinthians 12) How very unscriptural for you to deny that Mary was the recipient of all of the Gifts of the Spirit. How disappointing that those who preach the rapture of the elect deny that it has or even could have already happened to Mary.
What is it about Catholicism that twists a Catholics thinking about sex?
Catholics can spew the most vulgar things about people in regards to sex and procreation.
The Catholics seem loath to give God the credit for anything. It’s the RCC that brought scripture. It’s Mary who brings salvation. It’s the saints who protect. The list goes on and on.
Sure she is. We are human all.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 10:12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.
God is not a respecter of persons.
The gifts are for the edification of the body. They are distributed according the the HS will for that purpose. It has NOTHING to do with anyone "deserving" something or not.
It's got everything to do with God's plan and purpose for our lives.
How very unscriptural for you to deny that Mary was the recipient of all of the Gifts of the Spirit.
Mary was an apostle? A teacher? She spoke in tongues? She interpreted tongues? She had the gift of healing?
How disappointing that those who preach the rapture of the elect deny that it has or even could have already happened to Mary.
Scripture is silent on Mary's demise and whatever happened to her afterward. Anything beyond what is recorded or not in Scripture is pure, unmitigated speculation.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to Catholicism if all reference to Mary short of the virgin birth alone, were eradicated.
I wonder if any Catholic ever seriously tried to do Catholicism either in confession, mass, or in private, without Mary and instead just focused on Jesus and Him alone.
You don't see it clearly until you're out of it. Then it kind of blows you away how steeped in all that you were.
Sometimes a cigar ISN'T a cigar...
There goes that pesky respecter of persons thingy.
Oh??
How very unscriptural for you to CLAIM that Mary was the recipient of all of the Gifts of the Spirit.
(You can prove the above statement wrong by indicating book, chapter and verses.)
What did Mary actually "do" besides agree to not have an abortion for nine months? Don't we owe Joseph, a sinful man, even more for (supposedly) agreeing to keep Mary a "Perpetual Virgin" for at least thirty-four years (unless you want to argue for the "sudden death virgin" as some have)? And what about Mary's parents? What do we owe them for Mary's "Immaculate Conception", since that took nine months to cook up as well?Don't we owe every mother in the gospels' genealogies something, for teaching their daughters how to be obedient (a tradition which surely was handed down to Mary)? Have you considered arguing that we owe everything to Eve, who started the process by raising Abel and Seth in the right way?
But most of all, why do we owe these people anything, any different from the honor that is due to God? Is Mary keeping score, apart from God? To paraphrase how a Catholic FReeper expressed it last month, "Jesus may forgive you, but don't make his mother angry"? Are you actually arguing that (some) departed souls become both omniscient and omnipresent in Heaven?
Catholics have not spoken in contradiction to my post because it is right.
By "Catholics", do you mean all of them? A super-majority? Does a quorum of lay Catholics have the authority to even make that kind of pronouncement? I wouldn't discount the possibility that they're all busy with suppressing their laughter to post anything, contradictory or not. We really can't conclude anything until all Catholics of them have collectively spoken on your behalf.
Interesting question. I went to the internet and found a site called Catholic Answers which claims to Explain and Defend The Faith.
There is a thread that poses this very question:
On Jun 18, '04, at 6:46 am Gene Z. asked This might seem like an obvious question, but it has been something I have pondered here recently. I have heard it said that Jesus received his body and blood from his Mother Mary. However, if the blood saves, then how can Jesus have obtained his blood from His Mother since that would not be salvific because she was not divine but human.
Thanks for your time. May God continue to bless Catholic Answers' ministry.
The only answer was provided by Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.:
Even though Jesus received all this genetic inheritance from His mother, He did not receive His blood from her. The baby in the womb is completely separate from the mother. Often the child will have an entirely different blood type from the mother. His blood was solely His.
Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
So here is one ordained member of the Roman Catholic religion saying no.
I suppose those in the R.C. religion who insist otherwise are being their own Pope.
If Mary had free will, did God have back up Holy of Holies (sinless women) ready to go? If she could have refused, then that opens up the possibility that the Mother of Jesus was not known at the beginning of time. This means that either the nature of God would have had to change at the moment that the mother of Jesus was impregnated (an impossibility) or that the mother gave nothing of herself to Him during the pregnancy - God just came through her.
There are no other possibilities - well, except “It a mystery! To the rack with anyone who says otherwise!”
God, ever omniscient, knew from the beginning what Mary's response. He knew, that although She could have said no, she would not. Foreknowledge is not predestination.
Peace be to you
If there was anything in your posting history to suggest that you actually wanted and answer I would accommodate you. I do not care to play word games with you again. Know this, if the greatest minds of the Reformation in over 500 hundred years could not disprove the Church's teaching on Mary, what possible chance do you have in a few posts?
Peace be with you
For God it is. How can it not be? God created everything, including Mary to be the mother of Jesus. She had only the illusion of free will.
Say it ain't so......
Peace be with you
"...they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace..."
-- Ezekiel 13:10a
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